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Here is a note that appeared in our newspaper's 'You Said It' column:
"I am an avid sportsman who loves to hunt and fish, but what I saw at a recent gun show in L--- park disgusted me. There were hundreds of assault-type weapons for sale. There is absolutely no place for those guns in our society outside of law enforcement and the military. Limited gun control does not mean no guns."
Here is our reply:
Dear Editor,
It was said that assault weapons should not be used outside of law enforcement and the military. However, citizens are actually a branch of the military: the Militia.
The Second Amendment states: “A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of the free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.”
A Militia, according to ‘The American College Dictionary’ c. 1960 is “all able-bodied males ...more than 18 and not more than 45 years of age. Unorganized or reserve militia, ...not belonging to the National Guard or the Organized Reserves, or the Naval or Marine Reserves. A body of citizen soldiers as distinguished from professional soldiers.”
It wasn’t the Army, Navy, or Marines who won the Revolutionary War. It was British Colonial citizens who knew what their rights were. Consider what would have happened if they had not been well armed. There would be no U.S.A.!
St. George Tucker said in his annotated edition of ‘Blackstone’s Commentaries’: “The right of self-defense is the first law of nature: in most governments it has been the study of rulers to confine this right within the narrowest limits possible. Wherever....the right of the people to keep and bear arms is....prohibited, liberty, if not already annihilated, is on the brink of destruction.”
The ground of this great country is soaked with the blood of those who gave their all for the freedoms we now enjoy. It sickens me to think we, through apathetic ignorance, allow our government to deny our God given inalienable rights. If we disown our rights, we dishonor all those who died for them.
“I am thus far a Quaker : I would gladly agree with all the world to lay aside the use of arms and settle matters by negotiation; but unless the whole will, the matter ends, and I take up my musket and thank Heaven He has put it in my power.” - Thomas Paine
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Posted by jill